Crow Song
by DirtWaterPrince
Summary: Zutara, It is the eve of the execution and she finds makes an opportunity to visit him. He has given his neck for hers, and she owes him one last visit............oneshot, tear for the reference to smex and the execution


Author Notes: Okay, so fair warning; this story is kinda depressing. I mean, come on, it's the eve of his execution. Deathsadnessesses stuff. Ummm………….I haven't decided if I will make this a lemon or not. It depends on how this plays out.

Summary: Upon the eve of his execution, she finds (makes) a chance to visit him. He has given his neck for hers, and she, according to her people's traditions, must pay her last respects. And so she will……….zutara, zuko and katara, one-shot

**Bitter Goodbyes**

Her fingers curled desperately around the thick, cold bars, leaned on them, clutched on them, resented them, fought them, hated them, needed them….. Suddenly she realized she had changed subjects, though she wasn't sure when.

She squinted into the dark at the barely discernible form she had risked her life to see one last time. "Zuko?" she mumbled, keeping her voice low to remain undetected by the sentry down the hall. "Zuko, are you there?"

The form shifted, and then a low hiss of pain stilled him for a moment. Katara watched with a growing sense of depression as he doggedly hoisted his wounded body to his feet. Chains slithered across the cold earthen floor as he limped slowly forward. A sliver of light cast itself against the harsh lines of his pale, gaunt face.

Bumps, bruises and cuts littered his porcelain skin and she wanted to cry for him. No tears fell. He stumbled forward and his own long fingers curled steadily around hers. She lifted her head and found herself swimming in the pained depths of gold that bore his soul.

A deep soothing breathe quelled her fighting tears, and she freed her hand from betwixt the bar and his to caress the sharp dip of his cheek where solid, healthy flesh had once clung, replaced by the sagging decay of a prisoner.

His comforting smile was so heart-achingly beautiful that she was moved to tears. Even now, she knew he was trying to comfort her. He was already doomed to die, doomed to die for HER! Can't get emotional, this is probably hard enough for him…….but his smile suggested otherwise, the gentle way his free hand comforted her cold cheek, the warmth of the other on her freezing fingers.

She tried her best to control herself as she met his eye," You didn't have to do that, you know. You didn't have to be the hero." She doesn't know if she's thanking him or accusing him.

His smile is softer, nostalgic. "Yes, I did."

"You wouldn't be condemned to……… (She can't say it, won't) this… if you hadn't have stepped in-"

"You all would have been killed and there would have been no hope for the world," he interrupts. She gives an animal cry, and breaks like the Table of Solomon.

"Not like this, this wasn't………………not how it was supposed to ………………….not this, anything but this…….." sobs break her sentences, and she moans low in her throat. In a fury so inhuman she frightened herself, a lash of water freezes the bars and a powerful kick of rage shatters the sturdy metal.

Recovering herself, she watches Zuko take her hand and carefully extract a delicate shard of iron. "You should be more careful," he admonishes, clucking his tongue like a mother hen at the thin rivulet of blood that beaded up on her palm.

She snatches it back roughly. "What does it matter? What does anything matter anymore? Come on. We can still escape; we can get you out of here. It's not too far, I promise, we can make it!!" She stops abruptly, stunned by the furious look he throws at her. "I'm sorry," she mumbles automatically, lowering her gaze to the floor.

His hands drop to his sides. "I will take the consequences of my actions. I will not run. I'm no coward." Katara pounces on the word. She's crying again.

"No you're not, I know that, don't you think I know that! You're no coward!! But you have to come! You just have to!! Aang needs you! Who's gonna teach Aang firebending? Huh? Who'll beat some sense into Sokka's head when he's being a total jerk? Who'll ………………………….. who'll be there to take the hit when your Bedlam sister comes after me? Who'll keep watch during the first shift that eventually turns… turns into…..into the last because we 'need our rest??????" Katara was nearing hysteria.

Gently, Zuko caresses her cheek through her entire rant. Slowly, as her words die, she looks up to find him watching her with the most tender smile she's ever seen. There are a million things that need to be said in this moment. Lowering his head between the hole in the bars, Zuko presses a tender kiss to her lips that says it all.

The kiss was perfect for their nature; Katara's lips were stiff and chapped, while Zuko's were soft and gentle, like the give of a peach. Zuko's hand traced the gentle lines of her jaw, ears, eyes, nose, lips; Katara was frozen, afraid to touch him, to acknowledge how incredibly, painfully, unbearably BADLY she wanted to keep him, to hold him and love him.

The warmth of his presence soothes her in a way she will never forget and never be able to replace. "Zuko," she pleads softly," I…………..I need you………….please…" she knows he cannot escape with her. It is not in his nature. She makes a last ditch effort. "If you won't then I'll stay with you. I can't bear to go on without you. I'll beg them to kill me with you, rather than try to live without you." He nods solemnly. "Then I will die in vain, by your choice." He accuses her sternly. She closes her eyes and steps carefully between the broken edges of the bar, buries her face in the cocoon of his chest.

It is understood that she will leave before sunrise. He will not.

A firm hand on the back of her neck opens her mouth to him. This time there is no tender yield in his kiss. She accepts him in eager desperation. There time is short, they know, and she will pour out her soul in these coming hours. The gentleness of his ways is in the curve of his hand on her waist, the smooth brush of a finger across her neck.

Her lips are iron, her body porcelain, in his ministrations.

He presses her to the wall and challenges the temple of her mind, touching, holding, reveling each inch of her smooth, brown skin like he was unworthy to look upon her, yet denied nothing. He carefully respects what she has not offered him, a gentleman even in his final hours, and she is enchanted by the simplicity of the gesture. So with the assuredness of an experienced maiden(though she is untried in this corner of humanity), she takes his hands and proffers herself to his cause, an open book for his quill, claiming him even as he takes her innocence.

"Are you sure?" He says it with the gentle breathlessness of a modest request, a lowly servant to the goddess and her temple.

"I would have no other," she swears in the dark cave. And the rest is lost to the most basic instinct of man.

Dawn arrives, and Katara hastily dresses herself and, tears more abundant than before, kisses goodbye to the only man she will ever permit to love her. He is still smiling, even through the tears of his own. I love you's are exchanged, fervent kisses, and finally she is forced to flee as the sun nears the horizon. The guards come soon after, as expected. Executions are always at sunrise.

C'est fin.

Oh my, so I' m hoping that wasn't too cheesy.

Reviews make me giggle.

Your most Humble Story Teller,

Wind Bender


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